Background Removal with Fine Detail

Welcome to this tutorial on Background Removal with Fine Detail in Corel PaintShop Pro.

1. Open PaintShop Pro and launch the Edit workspace.

2. Open the photo that you'll be working with. In this example I have a photo of a family and I want to remove the background.

3.From the Layers palette, right-click on the thumbnail and select Promote Background Layer. This will make it possible to have a transparent background.

Since this photo was taken in the woods, the background is very complex and so, rather than starting with the Background Eraser tool, I will be using an alternative method. 4.From the Selection tools, choose the Smart Selection Brush.

5.Next, set the Mode to Add.

6. Carefully click and drag the brush over the parts of the image you want to keep.

You can also resize the brush so that it fits better in smaller areas.

8.When you have finished selecting the subjects completely, go to the Selections menu and choose Invert.

What this will do is select the background around the subjects of the photo.

9.If you notice that the selection has moved inside the subjects at all,you can remove those areas by choosing the Freehand Selection tool,setting the Mode to Remove, and then carefully outlining and removing those areas from the selection.

10. From the Selections menu choose Modify and then Feather.

11. In this example I'll increase the feather so that the selection overlaps the subjects in the photo. This way, when the background is deleted, the edges will appear smooth and free of any outline.

15. Use the key combination Ctrl and the letter A on your keyboard to select the entire image and then Ctrl and the letter C to copy.

Now you can open up the picture you want to use as a background.

16. From the Edit menu select Paste as New Layer and the image of your subjects will appear over the background.

You may need to zoom out and resize the subjects on this layer so that they match the background image.

17. Next, crop the image if need be.

18. If the lighting on the subjects does not match the lighting in the scene, you can try applying a filter to that layer.

To do this, open the Effects menu, choose Photo Effects and then Film and Filters.

19. You might need to apply multiple filters to get the effect you want. In this example I've applied a Warming effect to the background layer as well as the foreground layer so that both layers match - the result is that the subjects look like they have a slight tan and the sun appears directly above rather than in front of them. Since every project is different, you might have to play around with these settings to get the look you want.

20. When the project is complete, go to File >'Save As' and select PSPImage as the file type. This way, if you wish to make changes at a later time, your layers will remain intact.

21. To save a version that is suitable for e-mailing or uploading to Facebook, go back to File >'Save As' and select JPEG.

22. When saving a multi-layer file as a JPEG you will get a warning message and this is because a JPEG file can only contain a single layer. Click Yes to this message to continue.

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